Dallas was my fourth symphony gig with the KT and I was really looking forward to it. Just being on stage and feeling the swell of the orchestra coming in behind you is one of the greatest thrills a musician can have and I was as excited as a kid on the way to a Baskin Robbins.

To start off, we were staying at the Adolphus Hotel, considered to be one of the finest hotels in the world. There was enough walnut on the walls to stock a small lumberyard and the lobby was adorned with antique clocks, marble tables, huge palms in enormous pots beneath 15’ tapestries draped on the walls… You get the idea. A very “old money” place altogether.

On our opening night the hall provided dinner for us prepared by Chef Jason of the Opus restaurant adjacent to the hall. We praised his dinner so much that he came up to meet us and presented us with the recipe for the Bread Pudding everyone had raved about, at the bottom of which it says “serves 30.”

The concert itself went very well. It was one of those nights when the extra jokes kept popping up and the energy was high. Afterward we did a meet-and-greet with some of the people from Deloitte who had sponsored our show, then packed it in for the night.

The next day we walked down to the famous knoll in Daly Plaza to meet Robert Groden  (http://www.jfkmurder.com/home.html), an old friend of George’s and one of the leading authorities on the Kennedy assassination.

It was fascinating to be looking over the spot where Elm Street curves around the grassy knoll toward the underpass and to imagine how the events of that day changed the face of America.

Looking out from the knoll across the street and grassy slope opposite, there was the flag flying at half mast, as if in memory of JFK. In reality the flag had been lowered because of the death of Lloyd Bentson who had debated Dan Quail, but the effect was still chilling. The castle-like red brick building of the original Dallas courthouse is the backdrop.

Well, there’s nothing like a good conspiracy session to work up an appetite, so on the way back to the hotel we walked down N. Market to the popular tourist section and sat at one of the sidewalk tables at RJ’s Mexican Cuisine.

George and Cindy had dinner reservations for that evening at the hotel’s five-star restaurant, The French Room (prix fixe three-course meal for $72), so we ate lightly but it was very good. I recommend the black bean soup with shrimp and the rice pudding.

When the van came by to pick us up for the show, George and Cindy were still dressed from their five-star dinner at The French Room in the Adolphus hotel.

We asked how it was and Cindy said it was a fabulous dinner; but apparently they had gone for more than the prix fixe meal because George said that the tip alone was as much as a normally very expensive dinner would have been for both of them. I was glad to have had the bean soup and pudding earlier.